Geography

Vietnam occupies the eastern and southern part of the Indochinese
peninsula in Southeast Asia, with the South China Sea along its entire
coast. China is to the north and Laos and Cambodia are to the west. Long
and narrow on a north-south axis, Vietnam is about twice the size of
Arizona. The Mekong River delta lies in the south.

Government

Communist state.

History

The Vietnamese are descendants of nomadic Mongols from China and
migrants from Indonesia. According to mythology, the first ruler of
Vietnam was Hung Vuong, who founded the nation in 2879
B.C.
China ruled the nation then known as Nam Viet as
a vassal state from 111
B.C.
until the 15th
century, an era of nationalistic expansion, when Cambodians were pushed
out of the southern area of what is now Vietnam.

A century later, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to enter the
area. France established its influence early in the 19th century, and
within 80 years it conquered the three regions into which the country was
then divided—Cochin-China in the south, Annam in the central region, and
Tonkin in the north.

France first unified Vietnam in 1887, when a single
governor-generalship was created, followed by the first physical links
between north and south—a rail and road system. Even at the beginning of
World War II, however, there were internal differences among the three
regions. Japan took over military bases in Vietnam in 1940, and a
pro-Vichy French administration remained until 1945. Veteran Communist
leader Ho Chi Minh organized an independence movement known as the
Vietminh to exploit the confusion surrounding France's weakened influence
in the region. At the end of the war, Ho's followers seized Hanoi and
declared a short-lived republic, which ended with the arrival of French
forces in 1946.

Paris proposed a unified government within the French Union under the
former Annamite emperor, Bao Dai. Cochin-China and Annam accepted the
proposal, and Bao Dai was proclaimed emperor of all Vietnam in 1949. Ho
and the Vietminh withheld support, and the revolution in China gave them
the outside help needed for a war of resistance against French and
Vietnamese troops armed largely by a United States worried about cold war
Communist expansion.